How to Hide Your Facebook Ticker (Seriously)

I was tempted to never write this blog post because I think the negative response to the Ticker is a bit ridiculous. You might sense an an ounce (or metric ton) of sarcasm in my post How to Keep Your Old Facebook Profile and Get Rid of the Ticker FOREVER!. Well, this time I’m actually going to tell you how to do it (get rid of the Ticker, not keep your profile — you’re screwed on that one).

There are actually two ways to do it. So without further adieu, here is how to hide your Facebook Ticker…

Hide the Sidebar

At the very bottom of the Ticker in the right hand corner, you’ll find two icons: 1) a gear to control who sees you online for chat, and 2) a “little arrow thing” to hide your Ticker.

Click that arrow to hide the sidebar. Of course, this also hides the chat. As soon as you open up chat again, the sidebar will reappear.

But at least that will hide it from your view during non-chatting moments. If you don’t chat much and really hate the Ticker, this may work for you.

Or, there’s another option…

Adjust the Sidebar

There is a dividing bar that separates the Ticker from the list of friends who are currently online. Hover over that, and you’ll notice up/down arrows.

Drag down to give you one enormous, glorious Ticker. That’s what you want, right? No? Okay. Then drag up and your sidebar will only be a list of your friends who are online.

Hide and Show Facebook Ticker Variation **UPDATE**

I’ve received messages from a few people who say that they do not see what I show in my screen grabs above. Instead, the arrow icon is located at the top of the sidebar, under the Home link.

If you are one of these people, following is the icon you’ll see at the top of the sidebar. When the Ticker is open and you hover over it, “Hide Ticker” will display:

Unlike my explanation above, your Ticker is not replaced by a large sidebar of friends who are online. Instead, it looks like the old Facebook before the Ticker existed.

With one exception, of course. Now the arrow icon is flipped around, still at the top and directly below the Home link. Hover over it and “Show Ticker” will display:

You Decide

Look, I like the Ticker. I like that when I leave my News Feed (which is most of the time these days), I can still keep up with what people are doing. I like that I can catch up on light weight activities that don’t show up in my News Feed (recent comments on posts I missed, interactions with pages, etc.).

And maybe I’m biased. As a business owner with a Facebook page, the Ticker is important to me. If you like my page and interact with me, your friends will be notified in their Tickers. They hide that, they don’t see it.

But it’s up to you. If the Ticker gives you fits, you can hide it without taping a piece of paper over it.

Ignorance is Bliss?

I just hope that people hide it for the right reasons. Some people hate the Ticker because it’s information overload. I get that.

But others hate it because of what it uncovers — the inability of friends and friends’ friends to properly use privacy controls.

If you refuse to adjust your privacy settings from public or friends of friends, hiding your Ticker won’t solve that. And asking all of your friends to hide their Tickers won’t solve it either.

About Jon Loomer

Jon Loomer is a digital marketing consultant with a unique perspective on social media. He was introduced to Facebook in 2007 while with the NBA (back before Pages) and has been using Facebook for business ever since. Stay in touch by liking his Facebook Page (Jon Loomer Digital).

Maureen

Aaaah Jon it’s not even that complicated…….. Somewhere right at the top is a tiny pale grey line with an arrow. hover over that and it says either “hide” or “show” depending on what you set in the first place…….. The big Whoo-Haa was about the hoax that hackers could access your account if the ticker was operational……. It’s all just soooooo stupid and people love to be scared by a hoax. They then have something to get hysterical about……

http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer

It definitely sounds like there are different variations floating around. I wish I could see what you see so that I could add it to this post!

dan by the Sea

The big problem for Most of us is that: after choosing to hide the ticker, that little boxed arrow that should now say “show ticker” does NOT show itself… there is NO place to hover and click “show ticker”. The only way to get the ticker to appear is to change screen resolution to include the chat/ticker sidebar… this screen resolution makes everything too small for us mere mortals and that is why the internet is flooded with pleas for help. If anybody knows how to get that “show ticker” boxed arrow to magically re-appear, please let me know

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002523441977 Tracy Roberts

Im keeping my ticker, I haven’t got a problem with people seeing what I like. I am who I am and people don’t like it, then thats their problem. Thanks Jon, its good to know anyway xxx

http://jonloomer.com/blog Jon Loomer

I’m with you, Tracy. I’m the same way. It’s also a good filter, as I often find myself thinking, “Do I care if people see this?” before I take action. Others should do the same.

Thanks for reading!

Maureen.

Screen Shot 2012-02-14 at 7.07.19 PM

I’m not sure if I’m doing this right but I “grabbed” what I was talking about in my previous post and it’s as above. I hope you know what to do next ’cause I don’t. LOL. Please let me know…… Thanks.

Jojo

i don’t want to hide the ticker from me. I want to know how to hide every comment and like that I post on others’ posts from everybody and their brother (and sister) seeing! I have my privacy controls set for custom for my posts, photos, etc. but I resent EVERYBODY being able to see what I comment on and like. Help?

Smoozie

So I guess I can not hide what friends see when I comment on my other friends post?People DO see comments on friends post that they do not even know and DO NOT see friends ‘original’ post..

addiesoma

I still can’t do it. The ticker go up to the top and is next to “home” I don’t see the show/hide ticker thing. I don’t get anything when I hover either.